Conceptually, the GDR health care system was oriented towards the goal of reducing or eliminating inequality as well as illness and death (Spree, 1981; cited in Braun, 2020). This objective emerged from the labour movement and included equalising unequal health conditions among different population groups, general and free access to health care, and a comprehensive de-commercialisation of the health care system (cf. Süß, 1998). A uniform and comprehensive social insurance system was established to organise financing and access to medical care for all citizens. In addition to curative medical care, disease prevention was a prominent objective, carried out for example through preventive examinations and vaccinations (cf. Ahrens, 2002, p. 42). In the interests of prevention, a significant expansion of the health care system in the form of polyclinics and outpatient clinics was promoted (cf. ibid.). These institutions, which were linked to the social policy of the Weimar Republic, played an important role in the comprehensive health care of the population of the GDR and their number increased continuously throughout the entire duration of the GDR (cf. Süß, 1998, p. 100).

In order to legally incorporate the structure and costs of the health care system into comprehensive macroeconomic planning (Ahrens, 2002, p. 42), the health care system was centrally controlled, initially by the German Central Administration for Health Care established in the Soviet occupation zone and, after the founding of the GDR, by the Ministry of Labour and Health Care and, from 1950, the Ministry of Health Care. The ministry acted as a link between the planning, the state actors and the state-run medical care facilities. From 1950, the Compulsory School Attendance Act stipulated that all education and upbringing issues relating to children with special needs should be separated from the special school system and transferred to the bodies for youth welfare/residential care (Becker, 1984, p. 61). Based on the dividing line established by the legislation between 'capable of education' and 'incapable of education', responsibility for children and adolescents from the latter categorie was henceforth delegated to the health and social services and excluded from the public education system (see Hübner, 2000).

Against the backdrop of seemingly comprehensive, free healthcare, the GDR healthcare system is one of the few areas of society within the SED state that is still associated with a multitude of positive assessments and connotations (Braun, 2020, pp. 352-354). These general assessments are contradicted by concrete analyses that reveal critical findings regarding the healthcare system. It is emphasised that pharmaceutical care was often inadequate and often based on so-called ‘re-developments’ of preparations available in the West (Braun, 2020) and that, contrary to the supposed equal treatment, political officials received special care (ibid.). In particular, the proximity to social utilitarian ideas in the sense of social hygiene is criticised, according to which the health of the 'people' or the 'national economy' and an increase in productivity were the actual goals of the health policy of the GDR (cf. Süß, 1998; Ahrens, 2002).